Nardò. A 12.68km (7.9 mile) four-lane circular bowl of blistering banked concrete in Apulia, Lecce, tucked down in the heel of Italy. A place where searing heat, energy-sucking aerodynamic drag rising at the square of the speed and long-duration high-speed running gives no quarter to false hope, engineering hubris or less-than-perfect preparation.
There used to be a poignant rogues’ gallery at a nearby hotel where the teams stayed when they weren’t up all night at the track. There, a wall of banjaxed pistons and lunched transmissions shared space with splintered oil coolers, melted turbos and bird-strike windscreens, all bearing witness to failed record attempts of speed and endurance. The engineers would sign the broken part before packing up their troubles in the team transporter and returning north from whence they came…
Not for Mercedes-AMG, though, which meticulously prepared its chargers for its own record attempt on this Fiat-built, now Porsche-owned test track. The team included a roster of 17 drivers working in three shifts, including F1 ace George Russell who drove a stint. A year’s preparation with several real and virtual tests, two cars, a 135-strong engineering crew at Nardò, three at Brixworth and 33 at a remote nerve centre in AMG headquarters at Affalterbach in Germany.
